Matthew Xavier Corrigan: Moving things forward 

The events of the last few years have been the major, if not sole, informing factor in many people’s life decisions - but as the immediate personal turbulence of the crisis turns to negotiating waves made in its aftermath, there’s something oddly centring about hearing of fresh starts and new chapters in peoples’ lives.

One such artist on Cork’s music scene is singer, songwriter and producer Matthew Xavier Corrigan - embarking on new sonic endeavours under his given name after years under the Ghostking and Ghostking is Dead monikers, and pursuing a more solo, songwriting-focused direction after years of working in live bands and collaborative production as part of the Cork-originating HAUSU collective.

‘Meadow’, being referred to as Corrigan’s debut single under his own moniker, was launched a few weeks back, with an intimate gig at PLUGD Records marking the milestone.

“Releasing the first song of a new project is incredibly daunting, especially when it's your first time ever making music publicly available under your own name, despite having been releasing music for most of my life at this point. In the lead up to it, I had a bit of the Stoic, kind-of Marcus Aurelius mentality of, y'know, assume the worst, and you won't be disappointed. But I've been incredibly taken aback by how good the response has been, how many people have been coming up to me, and telling me how much they love it.

“In the last year, since I stopped doing Ghostking is Dead, I've made a lot of new friends, met a lot of new people, have started running in new social circles. A lot of those people have never known me as a releasing musician. So for them, this is an introduction to a whole facet of my character that they weren't previously familiar with, and the response has just been immense. Just the number of people that have got on to me or caught me in person and told me how much they enjoyed it has been really, really lovely.

“It's like rediscovering a part of myself that I kind of put on hiatus a year ago, kind of realised that over over the last year, I've not really felt like myself, because I haven't been producing music, something that I consider to be such a core part of my character. Now that it's out under my own name, I kind-of feel more like myself, in every facet of my life.”

That transition from the Ghostking is Dead persona - a florid, writerly entity, withered by the world and its transient aspects - to Corrigan’s own name, brings with it the aforementioned change in direction, much in the same way as Matthew Corrigan the person has rode out some fairly significant changes in his own life and circumstances, and arrived on the other side ready to move things forward

“It's certainly a culmination of a bunch of factors, but it was a decision I made over covid. Right at the beginning of 2020, I sold out a big headline show in Cork as Ghostking is Dead, and the project was gaining momentum all the time. It was really a live project. I'd make the music, and then we would adapt it live. That's where the project really came to life. And without that facet of it, I was kind of left maybe slightly directionlessly making music over the pandemic, and accumulating songs.

“I did release a thing or two, but what I was realistically left with, was this huge collection of material, and just a feeling like I needed to get away from that, because without the live elements, I lost what grounded the project. I was looking at all the songs, I was looking at a whole type of music I was writing now, which was more acoustic, more focused on songwriting than production, more focused on the instruments, more focused on maybe sitting in my back garden. Which I was doing most days, just sitting in my backyard, and playing guitar and singing, rather than, y'know, in the DAW, or with a band.

“I was coming to the end of college, I was going through all of these thresholds and transitions, and I decided that look, if, at any point, I was going to say goodbye to Ghostking, now is the time. It hurt, it was painful. I was saying goodbye to college, saying goodbye to friends who are immigrating. I was coming to the end of quite a long term relationship that I knew was ending. I was writing all the songs about these ending, but they weren't Ghostking is Dead songs. They're Matt Corrigan songs.

“So I decided I'd put out all the Ghostking is Dead stuff, I'd say my farewell at the same time I was saying all these other farewells, and go into this next stage in my life, the stage right now, where I have something new to focus on.”

Amid talk of transitional times, the EP is being released via one long-term consistent in Corrigan’s life, the HAUSU collective, which, owing to several external factors, has made the effort to remain together remotely, between Cork, Dublin and London.

It’s an exciting time for the group, with upcoming material from Corrigan and Drew Hall, following strong pandemic-era albums from fellow members Automatic Blue and Actualacid, and the ongoing work of related online release platform Important, handling monthly drops of new music from adjacent and admired artists.

“HAUSU is in a really exciting and interesting era at the moment. There was a time when we were all maybe still in college, we were still finding our feet, and we were all starting our first project. Now we're all a little older, a little wiser, we all have a bit more of a defined idea of what we're doing. And that brings with it a really exciting new era, we have things coming up abroad, we've expanded our vision out. We're still as ambitious as we ever were, but now it feels more pointed. It's less explosive and more surgical.

“It's really exciting because again, we had a little bit of downtime when everybody was working on new projects or finishing things up. Now we're starting once again, it's all a bit more mature, it's all a bit more targeted. And I'm actually very, very, very excited for the next batch of things.

“Being in HAUSU has always been to me, such a massive salve for the pains that are involved with endeavouring after an artistic path. It's such a brilliant solidarity to have, and we're all so close, even though we were all close before, we're so much closer now because there's this kind of unspoken solidarity that comes with just time spent - we all know our struggles, we all know each other, we all know our independent loves and hates, within what we do. And we all provide that support for each other. Honestly, it's one of the greatest privileges I have.”

Matthew Xavier Corrigan’s debut EP, ‘From 10 With Love’, releases on Friday, June 26, via HAUSU. Debut single ‘Meadow’ is available now across streaming services and for download from matthewxaviercorrigan.bandcamp.com.